The Collages of Helen Adam, edited by UB special collections librarian, Alison Fraser, brings together the largest selection of visual work to date by Scottish-American poet and visual artist Helen Adam (1909-1993). The book includes 40 stand-alone collages from the San Francisco period, a reconstruction of Adam’s photograph-collages displayed at the San Francisco-based Buzz Gallery in 1964, the final state of the ballad-collage “In Harpy Land”, and selections from two collage gift books made for the poet Robert Duncan and the publisher Robert Hershon.

Fraser contributed an introductory essay to the book, which also features essays by Lewis Ellingham, Samuel Delany and Robert Hershon, as well as an introduction to the collection by James Maynard, curator of the University Libraries’ Poetry Collection, and an afterword by Kristin Prevallet, editor of A Helen Adam Reader (2007). Taken together, the selection demonstrates both the breadth and commonalities of Adam’s visual and written work, opening up new possibilities for the study and appreciation of Helen Adam.

“As both a researcher and librarian, I have come to realize that the strength and value of the Poetry Collection is not only in its materials, but also in its people,” says Fraser. “Without the forward vision of former curator Robert Bertholf, who sought Adam’s work for inclusion in the Poetry Collection, this project would not have been possible.”

Co-published by Further Other Book Works and Cuneiform Press in 2017, The Collages of Helen Adam has had celebratory launches at the Kael-Jess Murals House in Berkeley, California, and the Tibor de Nagy Gallery in New York City. It has also been featured by the Poetry Foundation and the Poetry Society of America and reviewed by Mary Ann Caws in The Brooklyn Rail.

]]>Special Collections reopenshttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2018/03/06/special-collections-reopens/
Tue, 06 Mar 2018 21:08:33 +0000https://library.buffalo.edu/news/?p=1054The University Libraries Special Collections, which includes The Poetry Collection, University Archives, and Rare and Special Books, will reopen to the campus community on March 5.

Special Collections had been closed to the public for a months-long renovation to improve the environmental conditions of the closed stacks and provide the best protection for the valuable cultural and historical resources housed in the UB Libraries. The project also included installation of new seating and museum-quality exhibition cases.

Located in 420 Capen Hall, Special Collections’ regular hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Given the expected volume of visitors and research requests, patrons are encouraged to schedule an appointment with the Poetry Collection or Rare and Special Books at lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu, and with University Archives at lib-archives@buffalo.edu.

]]>2018 UB Student Poetry Prizeshttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2018/02/26/2018-ub-student-poetry-prizes/
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 14:07:35 +0000http://library.buffalo.edu/news/?p=1023Celebrate the power of poetry! The University Libraries invite UB students to participate in our annual poetry competitions for undergraduate and graduate students. Entries are due by March 16, 2018 in the following categories:

The Friends of the University Libraries Undergraduate Poetry Prize
$200 prize for the best poem or group of poems submitted by a UB undergraduate student.

The Academy of American Poets Prize
$200 prize for the best poem or group of poems submitted by a UB undergraduate or graduate student.

The Dan Liberthson Poetry Prize
$100 prize for the best poem or group of poems submitted by a UB graduate student.

For additional information, please contact: The Poetry Collection of the University Libraries at lpo-poetry@buffalo.edu.

]]>An Interview with Dr. James Maynardhttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2017/12/04/james-maynard/
Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:46:02 +0000http://library.buffalo.edu/news/?p=867James Maynard is Curator of the Poetry Collection of the University Libraries, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. His research interests include twentieth-century Anglophone poetry and poetics, pragmatism and process philosophy, the history of little magazines and small presses, literary archives, and the writings of Robert Duncan. He has published widely on and edited or coedited a number of collections relating to the poet Robert Duncan, including Ground Work: Before the War/In the Dark (New Directions, 2006), (Re:)Working the Ground: Essays on the Late Writings of Robert Duncan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), and Such Conjunctions: Robert Duncan, Jess, and Alberto de Lacerda (BlazeVox Books, 2014). His edition of Robert Duncan: Collected Essays and Other Prose (University of California Press, 2014) received the Poetry Foundation’s 2014 Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism. A critical study Robert Duncan and the Pragmatist Sublime is forthcoming next spring from the University of New Mexico Press and he is currently editing a volume of Duncan’s uncollected prose.​

What is your educational background and work history at UB?

After receiving a BA in English from Ursinus College outside of Philadelphia I taught high school English for a few years before completing an MA in English at Temple University. Both degrees involved different areas of poetry and poetics that made the Poetics Program in the UB English department a natural choice for my PhD (2007). As for my history in the Poetry Collection, I have enjoyed a happy apprenticeship working with two of its former curators. Having worked on a number of editorial projects related to the poet Robert Duncan with former curator Robert Bertholf, who was also a member of my dissertation committee, I became his graduate assistant in 2004. After he retired in 2007, I began working in a larger capacity with the entire collection with former curator Michael Basinski, and subsequently served as assistant to the curator, visiting assistant curator, assistant curator, associate curator, and now curator.

How have you enjoyed the first year of your new promotion to curator?

I was appointed as the Poetry Collection’s seventh curator last September, and it has been an exciting first year. Over the past twelve months we have added significantly to our holdings, brought in new manuscript collections, developed new digital collections, added new members to our annual fund, increased our current endowments, secured new endowed funds for the future, hosted exhibitions and events in our reading room, organized a public James Joyce exhibition in collaboration with the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library and state Assemblymen Michael P. Kearns, received a grant to begin a new summer research program for undergraduate and graduate students in Western New York, and, as I type this, we are in the process of hiring an assistant curator and adding a new poetry cataloger to keep up with our ever-increasing acquisitions. But then again, every year I have spent in the collection has been exciting!

Are there any particular changes or areas of focus you hope to develop for the Poetry Collection in the coming years?

I fortunately became curator at a particularly auspicious time in the Poetry Collection’s history, thanks to my immediate predecessor Michael Basinski and all that he was able to accomplish during a distinguished 32-year career in the University Libraries, and I look forward to continuing the collection’s growth. For me, that means expanding acquisitions and collections, educational activities, access to digital collections, community partnerships, fundraising and endowments, and staffing. In keeping with the UB Libraries’ mission to provide outstanding resources, experts, services and spaces to enrich the research, learning, teaching and creative activities of UB faculty, students and staff as well as those of the local and global community members we serve, my primary responsibility is to build the best collection possible and to advocate for it vigorously. As curator I try to do everything that I possibly can to raise the profile, enhance the visibility, and increase the use of the Poetry Collection regionally, nationally, and internationally. Looking ahead, I am excited by some of the possibilities that are lining up. In the fall of 2018, for instance, we have plans to organize a large exhibition of our Victor E. Reichert Robert Frost Collection in conjunction with the national Robert Frost symposium, and for 2022, the 100th anniversary of James Joyce’s Ulysses, I am hoping to build upon some exciting international partnerships. Also, later this year Further Other Book Works will be publishing The Collages of Helen Adam featuring a large selection of visual work from our Adam Collection. Over the next decade the greatest challenge—but also the greatest opportunity—facing the collection will be an eventual relocation and expansion project along with all of the UB Libraries Special Collections, and that is a process that we have just begun exploring. And looking even further ahead, 2037 will usher in the Poetry Collection’s 100th anniversary, which should be an enormous yearlong celebration. With any luck, I’ll be there uncorking the champagne!

What do you consider to be the Poetry Collection’s major strengths (in terms of its holdings)?

I could talk endlessly about our collections and individual holdings, which include first and other bibliographically significant editions of poetry, little literary magazines, manuscripts, criticism, anthologies, reference books, broadsides, photographs, zines, artwork, mail art, objects, audio recordings, ephemera and more. But one of our greatest strengths—and I believe this has been the case since Charles Abbott founded the Poetry Collection in the mid-1930s—is the people who care for them. I am tremendously fortunate to work every day with poetry archivist Marie Elia and poetry cataloger Edric Mesmer, as both are extremely talented and dedicated professionals who bring a great deal of subject knowledge and technical expertise to what they do. Additionally, there is a long list of faculty and staff in the University Libraries in the areas of special collections, administration, human resources, technical services, graphic design, digital collections, technology, communications and preservation as well as the student assistants, development officers and many others to whom I am constantly indebted for helping us do all that we do.

What perhaps-overlooked features of the Poetry Collection would you want to highlight for the UB Libraries Today audience?

I am always humbled by the magnitude of our mission and our ongoing responsibility to nothing less than poetry itself. As the library of record for 20th– and 21st-century Anglophone poetry, it is our goal to try and collect everything that is happening around the world at any given historical moment under the name of English poetry, which as a form is always heterogeneous, always plural. Clearly such totality is, and has been, and always will be an impossible horizon to reach, and yet I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the challenge was exhilarating. Indeed, I often like to say that one measure of our success is that we fail a little less every year. Given such large parameters, our accomplishments over the past 80 years would not have been possible without a significant network of friends, poets, publishers, editors, critics, donors, sympathizers, ambassadors, patrons, and supporters of all kinds, and I am endlessly grateful for everything they do to continue assisting us in our mission.

]]>Special Collections on North Campus Closed for Renovationshttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2017/10/09/special-collections-on-north-campus-closed-for-renovations/
Mon, 09 Oct 2017 19:04:08 +0000http://library.buffalo.edu/news/?p=729Due to significant renovations, The Poetry Collection, University Archives, and Rare & Special Books Collection are closed for the fall semester and until further notice. During this time our collections will be inaccessible and our ability to answer reference questions impeded, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
]]>“James Joyce: The University at Buffalo Collection” on display at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library.https://library.buffalo.edu/news/2017/07/20/james-joyce-the-university-at-buffalo-collection-on-display-at-the-buffalo-erie-county-public-library/
Thu, 20 Jul 2017 19:44:05 +0000http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu/news/?p=713In celebration of Buffalo’s selection as the host city for the 2017 Gaelic Athletic Association’s Continental Youth Championships, an exhibition of images from the University Libraries’ renowned James Joyce Collection is on display at the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library at 1 Lafayette Square, in downtown Buffalo through August 5th.

]]>Special Collections (in Capen Hall) closed for Renovationshttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2017/05/26/special-collections-in-capen-hall-closed-for-renovations/
Fri, 26 May 2017 00:52:57 +0000http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu/news/?p=709Due to significant renovations, The Poetry Collection, University Archives, and Rare & Special Books Collection will be closed on May 30, 2017 until further notice. Tentatively, the collections will reopen to the public in September, but that date may change. During this time our collections will be inaccessible and our ability to answer reference questions impeded, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
]]>A critic among the poets, Maynard named curator of Poetry Collectionhttps://library.buffalo.edu/news/2016/11/07/a-critic-among-the-poets-maynard-named-curator-of-poetry-collection/
Mon, 07 Nov 2016 15:46:46 +0000http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu/news/?p=633The only thing that surpasses James Maynard’s passion for teaching is his love of poetry.

This exhibition of material from the collection of Daniel Bratton and Carol Williams features works of art that were made in collaboration with the internationally acclaimed poet, editor, and publisher Cid Corman.

On the occasion of his retirement from the University Libraries, this exhibition celebrates Curator Michael Basinski’s distinguished 32-year career in the Poetry Collection and his remarkable accomplishments as a poet, sound performer, and visual artist.

On view October 3 – October 31, 2016Monday through Friday, 9:00am – 4:30pm